We have done a bad job explaining 1Password 2, 1Password 3, and Snow Leopard and inadvertantly created a lot of confusion. I’m sorry about that and hope that this post will clear things up.

1Password 2 on Snow Leopard

1Password 2 works fine on Snow Leopard “out of the box”. The main application and all browsers work fine, except Safari. Safari is special because starting in Snow Leopard it runs in 64-bit mode which is very different than Leopard or Tiger.

While 1Password 2 cannot run in 64-bit Safari, it is possible to make it work in 32-bit mode. We just published version 2.9.29 to make it easier so all you need to do is highlight Safari in Finder, ctrl-click on it and select Get Info, and enable the “Open in 32-bit mode” checkbox under the General section.

Once 32-bit mode is enabled, restart Safari and the 1P icon should appear in your toolbar. If it doesn’t, please see this troubleshooting guide for help.

To recap, you do not have to modify anything to get 1Password 2 working on Snow Leopard if you decide to use a browser other than Safari. If you want to use Safari, you need to configure it to run in 32-bit mode.

If 1Password 2 gives you an error that it cannot launch on Snow Leopard, you need to update to the latest version of 1Password 2. Simply download the latest version from our website and be sure to drag your existing copy to the Trash before copying over the new version.

The upcoming 1Password 3 is able to run in Safari even in 64-bit mode, and you can participate in the beta if you like. Read on for details.

1Password 3 Beta

1Password 3 is the largest upgrade in Agile’s history. It contains many new features and has been in development for over a year.

We were hoping to finish 1Password 3 before Snow Leopard was released so everyone could enjoy the 64-bit Safari goodness, but we didn’t make it. To compensate, we decided to open up the beta testing to all Snow Leopard users.

1Password 3 has been in private beta testing for a long time now and has proven to be quite stable. However, if testing software and reporting issues is not your idea of fun, we recommend that you wait for the final 1Password 3 release later this year. In the meantime, you can continue to use 1Password 2.

If you want to join the 1Password 3 Early Access team, all you need to do is start 1Password 2 on your Snow Leopard installation. When you do, you will get this prompt:

Simply click Get 1Password 3 and you will be taken to the setup instructions. If you do not see this prompt, update to the latest version of 1Password 2 by following the instructions in the 1Password 2 on Snow Leopard section.

1Password 3 is shaping up quite nicely, so we wanted to give you a better idea of all the awesome features we’ve been working on for the past year. After all, 1Password 2 came out nearly three years ago, so customers are excited and want to know what they’re getting when purchasing an upgrade license – the first paid version upgrade we’ve ever had.

This post is going to highlight some of the most interesting and broadly appealing ingredients of 1Password 3, but there’s plenty more where these came from. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll have more posts here that go in-depth on some of these features and reveal other notable improvements. But for now, let’s get started with the big features of 1Password 3.

1PasswordAnywhere

Users have been asking for a way to access their data on other computers running Windows and Linux, and the new 1PasswordAnywhere feature in 1Password 3 is designed specifically for that.

1Password makes it incredibly easy to use a unique strong password for every website. This makes things much more secure, but made it difficult to login to websites while away from your Mac. With 1PasswordAnywhere, you can securely access your passwords from, well, anywhere.

1PasswordAnywhere does not store your information on our servers. You can store your 1Password data file where ever you want, and use the embedded web application to decrypt and view your data.

1PasswordAnywhere is also Dropbox-friendly. If you sync your Agile Keychain on Dropbox then you can also access your passwords using its web interface. You will need to know both Dropbox username/password and the Master Password of the Agile Keychain.

Edit 1Password items in your browser

Sometimes you need to change a Login or delete an old Credit Card that you are no longer using. Right now, you have to stop what you’re doing, get out of your browser, launch 1Password 2, and search for the item you need to edit.

Not anymore.

1Password 3 stays out of your way even more now, allowing you to remain in your browser to edit or even delete Logins, Identities, and Credit Cards. If 1Password 3 is installed, you can simply find one of these items from our browser button, then hold the Shift key and click to open an editing interface right from your browser. Use the Option-Shift combination, and you can altogether delete the item without ever opening 1Password 3.

Note that this feature does not work with 1PasswordAnywhere – 1Password 3 must be installed and using your Agile Keychain in order to edit items from within your browser.

New Software Licenses category

Many of us now have hundreds of Software Licenses. 1Password 2 stored them in the Wallet and it was difficult to organize them. 1Password 3 adds a brand new Software Licenses section to solve this problem, with some interesting twists.

Instead of showing a simple list of licenses, 1Password 3 will import their beautiful icons. This makes for a better organization experience and proudly displays your application licenses.

You can drag-and-drop application icons from the Applications folder into 1Password to quickly add new Software Licenses.

Completely new UI

More than just a pretty face or “how it looks,” every 1Password window has been revisited to improve the overall experience and make it easier to add or find your information. For example: like the beautiful application icons we collect for Software Licenses, 1Password 3 will collect thumbnails for each Login, making it much easier to quickly identify a site from the list when you need it right away. You can even add photos from your iSight to an Identity to help it stand out.

We’ve removed buttons, streamlined 1Password 3’s window, and added a new “Syncing” area to the left sidebar that displays the devices you synchronize with. All of this, and more, is part of our quest to make 1Password an extremely easy and beautiful application.

Customizable Login and Wallet items

Want to get rid of some fields from Login items? Perhaps you want to add extra information to your Wallet items that we didn’t provide in the template. With 1Password 3, it’s no problem. You can now add new custom fields to Wallet items and completely customize existing fields too.

Improved Wi-Fi Syncing

You can now see your synced devices in 1Password’s sidebar, thanks to our completely redesigned UI. Click your device, and you’ll get an iTunes-like area for selecting specific folders for syncing, allowing you to choose whether to bring only a specific portion of your items on-the-go.

1Password touch can sync items from the folders you choose, though it does not support folder organization. 1Password touch Pro will sync the folders along with their items. Eventually, it will also let you create folders on iPhone and sync them back to your Mac.

Tags

In addition to folders, tags give you another very flexible system for organizing items in 1Password 3. Tag a couple Logins, a Wallet item, and a few Secure Notes with “work,” and you can click or search for that tag to view just the items you need while in the office.

Gestures

Apple brought multi-touch gestures like finger-swiping to make Mac OS X easier to use, so we added this convenience to 1Password 3. It works just like in Mail.app, use three-finger swipe gesture to navigate the items.

64-bit Snow Leopard support

One of the most significant changes in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is a virtually top-to-bottom architectural shift to 64-bit computing. While this basically means that many applications may see improved performance (especially at the high-end like large Photoshop files and video editing), there isn’t much to see on the surface for end users. Still, such a large shift is no small feat, but 1Password 3 and its browser extensions are fully compatible.

Last weekend we discussed the ins and outs of what the release of Snow Leopard means for users of 1Password 2 and our forthcoming sequel, 1Password 3: The Revenge of the Awesome. However, we’re still getting questions about 1Password 3 and whether users should upgrade to Snow Leopard, so I’m going to revisit the topic.

In a nut: 1Password 3, still in private beta testing, is the only version of 1Password that is currently being tested and supported to run on Snow Leopard. If you haven’t gotten into the private beta yet, though, fret not, for we have good news, especially if you’re itching to upgrade to Snow Leopard as soon as it arrives on Friday.

When you try to run 1Password 2 after upgrading to Snow Leopard, you will gain a free pass into the 1Password 3 beta. That’s right: pass go, collect $200, do not go to jail. Except, we aren’t giving you $200, and I don’t think you could be jailed for running 1Password 2 on Snow Leopard… but you will see a prompt like the one below for downloading a beta trial version of 1Password 3:

These betas are fully functional and offered only to Snow Leopard users (for now) since they’re the ones who need 1Password 3 the most. We ask that those opting into the beta to please participate in the beta process by submitting bug reports and letting us know if things go wrong. After all, that’s what the “beta” thing is all about.

Now we don’t want to force people to test 1Password 3, so as an alternative, we documented how to make 1Password 2 run on Snow Leopard. It is an unsupported configuration, but many users have reported success. When upgrading to Snow Leopard, you will need to decide if you want to use the unsupported 1Password 2, or help test 1Password 3.

Don’t forget: 1Password 3 is our first paid upgrade ever, and we have a very wide-open window for giving free license upgrades to owners of 1Password 2. 1Password 3 is effectively a trial version, but testers can update during the beta process until it officially ships and a full or upgraded license for 1Password 3 will be required.

1Password won an Editor’s Choice Award from CNET earlier this year, but it is once again back in the tech network’s spotlight.

In CNET’s newsletter this week, Senior Associate Editor Jason Parker recommends 1Password as the easy way to surf securely and as the best in its class:

Most people start to use the same login names and passwords for everything, but clearly this is not a secure practice. Fortunately there are programs that remember your login information for you. This week we have the latest update to 1Password, possibly the best in its class for the Mac. Download this app to find out how easy it can be to always be safe and secure with your logins while you surf.

Safe, secure, and easy – the best of all three worlds! Thanks Jason and CNET!

We’re still wrapping up our private beta test of 1Password 3, but already it appears as though someone on the production crew of TNT’s “Leverage” drama is a fan.

Take a look at some comparison screenshots from a recent Leverage episode called “The Top Hat Job.” Call me crazy, but that sure looks like an homage to 1Password 3’s new lock screen:

Here’s another shot with two before-and-after stills from the episode:

Thanks for the love TNT, and thanks to 1Password customer Kevin Ayers for tipping us off!

Note to private beta testers: This screenshot of our new lock screen has been out for a while. Please keep all screenshots, blog posts, and tweets locked in their full and upright positions until 1Password 3 has landed for the general public.

As you may have heard by now, Gravity Applications, makers of SofaControl and Tags, has decided to discontinue developing Steel, its password manager. Steel should continue to work on current systems, but no future updates are planned.

In order to help Steel users switch to an alternative, we’ve teamed with Gravity Applications to offer a 20% discount on 1Password licenses. Just visit the Steel site and click on our sale banner there to claim the discount, which is applied to your cart at checkout.

If you want to bring your Steel data with you to 1Password, Ernest Prabhakar beat us to publishing a how-to about the process at his site, iHack. The process is fairly straightforward and takes advantage of our powerful Import Assistant tool, which allows you to bring data from many of our competitors including eWallet, KeePassX, other browser, and even Windows-based apps like RoboForm. Just specify the proper column labels when importing your Steel data to 1Password, and you’ll be good to go.

If you are unsure about switching to 1Password, you can of course try a free, completely unrestricted demo for 30 days from our site. Steel users will have to hurry, though, because our 20% sale ends August 31, 2009.

Ask for a better explanation of how to use 1Password touch Pro’s multi-item clipboard, and ye shall receive. We’ve created a short demo video, embedded above, on how to use this feature. It uses a basic example of Facebook’s mobile site which requires an email and password, but it should apply to just about any login or form-filling situation.

Let us know what you think of the demo. When all you need is a single password most of the time, our Quick Copy and Paste feature works great. When you need multiple items, you need to do some more leg work in order to skirt around several limitations in how we’re allowed to interact with Mobile Safari. Naturally, we’re always on the hunt for better ways to implement features, and we have a couple ideas in the oven.

Also note that the multi-item clipboard feature is a 1Password touch Pro exclusive. While we’re adding Pro-level features, 1Password touch Pro is on sale from its eventual regular price of $14.99. We are slowly increasing the price as we add features, but as of this writing, you can score 1Password touch Pro for only $7.99 – nearly 50% off.

Earlier this month, freelance hiring service Elance suffered a data breach. Announced on the company’s blog, hackers obtained the contact information of registered users like name, email address, telephone number, and city. Login information was also stolen, though Elance says that passwords were protected with encryption.

No other account information, such as credit card numbers or bank accounts, was stolen in this breach.

Elance says that it is taking a “drop everything” approach to this breach, and it has already implemented a number of steps to protect the data of both the company and its users. Besides fixing the hole and communicating with affected users, the company is also requiring that all users reset their passwords according to new, more stringent requirements. Naturally, we are fans of this fundamental recourse to a data breach. We recommend that all Elance users sign in at their earliest convenience to perform this simple, effective process.

How 1Password Can Help

Of course, 1Password makes it orders of magnitude easier to minimize your exposure in situations like this. If you use 1Password to generate your passwords, you have very little cause to worry about duplicate passwords and your risk is mitigated.

If you have entries in 1Password that do use the same password, you can search for entries that have that password and then change them accordingly.

Launch 1Password

Enter your master password to unlock your keychain (if necessary).

Click the magnifying glass in the search field and choose “Search in Password.”

Enter the password in the search field.

This will reveal all the entries with that password.

1Password Workflow for Changing Passwords

Select a login and choose File > Go and Fill Login (cmd+return) from the menu to go to the site and login.

Navigate to the change password page.

Right click the password field and choose “Strong Password Generator” to generate a new password.

Click “Fill” and then submit your password change.

1Password will attempt to recognize that you are changing your password and offer to update the login’s password for you. If it does not, you can find the generated password in the Password History section of 1Password and update the login manually.

Hot on the heels of our fresh new Welcome to 1Password video comes Welcome to 1Password touch, a captivating tale of murder, mystery, and a love long forgotten.

Wait, wait, wait… sorry, wrong video. Welcome to 1Password touch is our new “foot-in-the-door” for aspiring 1Password touch customers. It’s embedded above and it struts some of the best features to a catchy tune, so we hope you like it and post it to every website and blog you possibly can. At the very least, we’ll settle for you sending a few emails to those friends and family members who are (perhaps unknown to them) just dying for 1Password touch, deal?

I read a post today about a couple of developers that, combined, created over 3,000 iPhone applications. It means that they were submitting over 8 apps/day every day since the opening of the App Store. You can guess what the quality and the overall value of these apps are. This is just another kind of spam.